[Demon] Rotation, especially Demonic Empowerment

[Thundertom]

Hey guys

I know it's probably not the best or most viable spec out there for Warlocks, but I've never been one to play FOTM specs, I usually pick a spec that appeals to me, and for Warlocks this is Demonology.

I kind of struggle with the rotation however, especially when to use Demonic Empowerment.

What I'm reading is you should keep it up 100%, and you should also use it when you have Dreadstalkers up to buff those as well.

I don't see how I'm supposed to do this, as it always seems to have a few seconds of downtime because when I cast it after Dreadstalkers, it runs out just before Dreadstalkers comes back up again.

Should the rotation be casting Demonic Empowerment -> Dreadstalkers -> Demonic Empowerment ? Because that's just silly.

I'm already talenting Hand of Doom, just to make sure I have enough time to keep Doom up, and cast Hand of Gul'dan as well. And talenting Shadowy Inspiration just to get a free Demonbolt/SS so I have some idle time in case I have to move or something.

Is it because I'm still levelling and my haste levels are still pretty low so I cannot cast fast enough to keep everythign rolling? Or am I missing something?

Rotation seems really really tight, and just a little fuck up can mess it up pretty badly.

Maybe it's my inexperience.

I am level 106 at the moment btw.

Hoping you can shed some light on this, or point out what I'm doing wrong.

Thanks in advance.

Tom

[Dietrik]

You are forgetting hand of gul'dan, you cast it after you cast those too.

Demo is a good spec, not sure where the not viable came from. Look at Not's opener in the guide, should give you an idea of how it flows after the opener.

[Thundertom]

Thanks for your reply.

Would you agree that the rotation is pretty tight at lower haste levels?

And about Hand of Guldan; I empower the Wild Imps as well or is there no need to cast Demonic Empowerment after Hand of Guldan?

[Deleted]

Greetings and welcome to the darker, more enjoyable side of the game!

Currently, demonology is in a bit of a weird spot. (Even the designers said they couldn't "fix" demonology till next expansion due to the amount of rework it needs.) So for now, take all it's quirks and embrace them.

With that out of the way:
First off, HASTE. Haste is your biggest friend and demonology is simply not that "smooth" at lower haste levels. This will continue, and get a little worse, until you reach level 110 and get some tasty haste gear.

Rotation wise: It is very easy to screw things up with this specc and deal less than desirable damage. What you want to do is to cast Demonic Empowerment, DE for short, each time you summon a demon. This makes each summon look like this: Dreadstalkers -> DE, Hand of Gul'dan (HoG) -> DE. (Note: These are examples of individual summons, hang on to your demonic underwear till I get to the actual rotation)
Sidenote here: ONLY use HoG on 4 shards! There are cases in which you COULD do with less, but just generally DON'T!
However, if you were to use a Cooldown demon, Grimoire of Service or Doomguard, you can "chain summon". It goes like this: Dreadstalkers -> Doomguard -> DE OR HoG -> Doomguard -> DE. The latter is for when dreadstalkers are on cooldown.
You can also cast Service -> Doomguard -> DE. Simply summon your weakest in a combo first. This means that you would need to cast Dreadstalkers/HoG first, then the CD and THEN empower them.

There is also Thal'kiels Consumption to consider. You basically cast this when you have as many demons out as you possibly can. For example, the following burst opener shows when you would cast it.
pre-cast DE -> pre-cast Demonbolt -> Doom -> Service -> Doomguard -> Dreadstalkers -> DE -> Demonbolt x 4 -> HoG -> DE -> Thal'kiels Consumption.

After the opening sequence its basically:
1. Cast Dreadstalkers if you have 2 shards. (Immediately cast DE)
2. Cast HoG if you have 4 shards. (Immediately cast DE)
3. Cast Demonbolt till you can do either of the above.

With this simple rotation you will have a 100% uptime on Doom due to frequently using HoG and DE will always be on your main pet.

Last but not least: We simply HATE movement. Actually, the feeling is mutual. Movement hates us too!

[Thundertom]

Great reply, thanks!

I'll admit I am tempted to cast a HoG at lower SS when I see the tank has gathered up a yuge amount of mobs, just to make sure they all have Doom on them. Sometimes the mobs move, or they blink somewhere or whatever, and then it won't spread as much anymore. Is this acceptable?

Also I guess I am casting Demonbolt way too often. I guess a big part of a Demo lock's rotation is buffing your pets and letting them do the damage?

[Deleted]

On thrash it is okay to cast HoG with less shards. It's not that important to be fully optimal against non-boss enemies that live less than 30ish seconds. Plus doom deals a ton of damage, so that's okay. Just make sure that the adds live long enough for Doom to actually tick.

The rotation is all about summoning the demons. Demonic Empowerment should, for all intents and purposes, be baked into the summoning spells themselves OR become a cooldown of sorts.
Without all the rambling, Priority is: summoning -> Empowering -> gain shards rince and repeat

[Thundertom]

It would make sense if Demonic Empowerment would be a Warlock buff you'd have to refresh every now and then in some way, but that would maybe be kinda boring as well. Just feels silly you have to do it every summon you do.

[Deleted]

Yes, that is simply one of the quirks that it has currently. Each demon you summon has to be empowered. This creates a slow windup till you properly deal some damage AND makes for some boring gameplay.

[martinquesnel]

im ilvl 880 right now and i can tell you that your rotation will be highly dependant on your haste!
Keep in mind that Summon Dreadstalkers is the bread and butter of Demonology spec...

Lets break it down to a scenario of a BOSS be it dungeon or Raid (something that will take more than 30sec to die)
First you cast Demonic empowerment and send your fel guard in to start things off... as he makes his way to the target, cast DOOM to start the ticks rolling.
next you cast your 2nd fel guard (if you talented for it) followed by your Doom guard (assuming single target) and you follow up with Demonic empowerment again!

This will refresh the demonic empowerment on your pet who's slugging it out as well as empower the 2x new CoolDown demons before they even get a hit in... and now it falls to your rotation! Assuming you started the fight with 3x shards (DEFAULT) you are short one to get the dread stalkers out... so cast shadow bolt/demon bolt to get another shard and in the immortal words of Thal'Kiel RELEASE THE HOUNDS! as soon as they are out beef em up with demonic empowerment followed by 4x shadowbolts/demonbolts and a hand of Gul'dam to drop 4 imps and refresh Doom.... at this point i skip the empower the imps and trigger the artifact weapon Thal'Kiel Consumption before the dreadstalkers despawn or worst the big CD demons which is all dependant on your haste.

Then it's a eval of situation moment: Your Doom Guard, extra Fel Guard and dread stalkers are likely gone or about to despawn and your Empower Demon spell is winding down and also about to fall off... and your shard count is low... Biggest priority is keeping 100% uptime on demonic empowerment... so look at your fel guards' empowered state and if you have 6sec or more on the clock go ahead and cast DREADSTALKERS as soon as possible, 4x bolts, hand of Guldam and demonic empowerment... if you have less than 6sec on your clock... try to get DREADSTALKERS out empower them and then move to bolts to get 4x imps out with a hand of Gul'dam.... rinse and repeat.

Remember it's better to keep 100% up time on Demonic Empowerment on Fel Guard (PET) and DREADSTALKERS then to let it fall off for the sake of timing the release of 4x imps via hand of Gul'dam..

Now then it's been been 40sec since your last Thal'Kiel's Consumption was triggered and it's about to come off Cooldown... Take a momment to look at what's out there... if it comes off CD and you have a few imps and your fel guard going at it and no DREADSTALKERS out... it's best to wait to use it... Ensure a new set of Dreadstalkers are out and empowered at the bare min.... if circumstances allow for it... and Doom needs refreshing well get Hand of Gul'dam out there with maybe 1 or 2 imps as you don't want to miss out on Doom's ticking damage either... before using Thal'Kiel's consumption again... In general i never use the artifact unless i have atleast 1 fel guard, and 2 dread stalkers....

Now then... as the fight carries on you'll often be in a situation where your 3rd Thal'Kiel Consumption is again off CD... but it should be pretty close to your 2nd Fel Guard coming off cool down as well... So again prioritize your 2nd Fel Guard through Grimoire of Service and dread stalkers all being empowered before using Thal'Kiel's consumption... and rinse and repeat using bolts to keep a constant supply of imps via Hand of Gul'dam and Dreadstalkers when off CD until target dies or your big CoolDown is ready to be used again being DoomGuard/Inferno.... again just because Thal'Kiels ready you should hold off until you have the Maximum amount of big demons are empowered (ignoring imps) to use Thal'kiels consumption and you'll put down some pretty good DPS...

I'm currently holding 450-500k dps and usually in the top 3 for the LFG if not #1...

Now the entire rotation goes out the window if the fight revolves around tons of Adds... if you know going in that you'll have a constant swarm of adds then change your build for AOE and you'll put down incredible AOE dmg in the Millions.

For AOE dreadstalkers are ignored... DoomGuard is replaced by Inferno and doombolt is replaced by DarkGalrey, Grimoire of Synergy is used and you want to use imp implosion as a talent over improved dreadstalkers.

So when it comes to AOE, it boils down to sending in the fel guard triggering his special ability Felstor, crashing a inferno in the pack of mobs and casting hand of Gul'dam before releasing darkglare and empowering him followed by imploding the imps and chanelling demon wrath until you have 5 shards to use hand of gul'dam again. The AOE dmg is low in the first few seconds however if you can keep DarkGlare empowered, chanelling demonwrath until you have 5 shards to release hand of guldam implosion... in very short amount of time your AOE dmg will be going through the roof... pay special attention to your mana as you will be going through it rather quickly with all the quick casting. At a point you'll be able to skip demon wrath as the amount of demons on your target will be great enough that they will auto-generate shards faster than you can use em.... I've seen many instances where i can't cast Hand of Guldam and implostion fast enough to deplete my shard count and the meters being in the Millions far surpassing most other players.... To add to all this carnage if you have the Legendary Trinket... the CD on Inferno/DoomGuard is greatly reduced dependant on the amount of demons you can spawn.

I hope this helps... enjoy slaughtering your foes...

One last thing... if you have to decide between ilvl 850 with 30% haste vs ilvl 860 with 15% haste.... use the 860 to join groups, but equip the 850 for the fight and you'll benefit greatly from the increased haste

[Tuskchi]

I thought it's very simple lol ... basically after each demon summon => demonic empowerment.

I'm playing with the talents that reduce Doom's tick time, doom summons you a wild ump when it ticks and the "free" dreadstalkers proc .... I cast Dreadstalkers only when the proc is on =)

Generally, only thing I'd swap is Implosion if I feel strong AoE is needed ... but then again, u can simply play Affli on that fight lol

[Thundertom]

Geez guys, I didn't expect this many great replies. Thanks!

Looks like I wasn't doing that much wrong, and I just need to empower after every pet summon I do, instead of just doing it for Felguard and Dreadstalkers.

Because of my low haste I think that me picking instant Doombolt is a good choice, as it saves me the cast time for generating some Demonbolts.

I'll try Darkglare when I hit level 110 and I dont have to level anymore.

[Duckz0rs]

Geez guys, I didn't expect this many great replies. Thanks!

Looks like I wasn't doing that much wrong, and I just need to empower after every pet summon I do, instead of just doing it for Felguard and Dreadstalkers.

Because of my low haste I think that me picking instant Doombolt is a good choice, as it saves me the cast time for generating some Demonbolts.

I'll try Darkglare when I hit level 110 and I dont have to level anymore.

Darkglare can actually be great for leveling if you want to give it a shot now. Make sure to get Hand of Doom as well, and perhaps even Implosion (probably overkill), and questing will become a breeze. Gather up all the mobs (pulling with Doom) and burst them all down in a couple of seconds. Your Felguard, if Empowered beforehand, should hold aggro and be able to take the damage. Demonwrath to gain shards.

[Thundertom]

Is the faster Doom tick talent (cant remember the name atm) a viable pick overall? Or should I take empowered Dreadstalkers?

I'll give Darkglare a whirl then. Its just that Quest mobs already die so quick that Doom is harly worth putting up at all because it doesnt have a chance to tick lol.